Welcome to your new home. By now you’ve probably realized that your campus is beautiful and the weather is generally pleasant.
Familiarize yourself with campus and spend a lot of time on it. Take naps on the lush hills below Powell Library, sit on uncomfortable chairs at Kerckhoff Hall’s patio. Gaze in awe at Royce Hall at night. Get lost in the Mildred Mathias Botanical Garden.
This school will be any number of things to you ““ the backdrop to the next four years of your newfound life. You will fight bureaucracy here, fall in and out of love here, and get A’s and not get A’s here.
In other words, get used to it. But don’t stop there. Your college experience should extend far beyond your campus.
To maximize your UCLA years, you need to mix equal parts UC and L.A.
This takes some effort. You might not have a car, you might not have that many friends and you might not have much money ““ or at least you pretend not to because you are now a “starving student” … with a meal plan. But that doesn’t have to hold you back.
Los Angeles is America’s second largest city, and boasts a myriad of enjoyment opportunities ““ from the serene to the sinful and the cheap to the simply unattainable.
So let’s go. First, find a map and a sense of direction. You’ll soon be indoctrinated in the North Campus-South Campus saga, but aside from the campus itself, a sense of direction will be your best friend.
Realize that UCLA is ideally located in Los Angeles. A 20-minute bike ride to the ocean and a 15-minute drive to Hollywood, you now reside in a sort of idealized mecca of urban luxury.
Here, the ocean is always west. That means that Santa Monica is west and Third Street Promenade is west, albeit also slightly boring. Beverly Hills and Hollywood are east. Downtown is also east, but you can’t walk there from Hollywood. Now streets: Though they eventually bend and twist in odd ways, Santa Monica, Wilshire, and Sunset boulevards are essentially east-west streets. Santa Monica is the southernmost, Wilshire is in the middle and Sunset is the northernmost, kissing campus’ northern edge.
Westwood Boulevard, Gayley Avenue, Veteran Avenue, Third Street and Highland Avenue in Hollywood are generally north-south routes. That should serve you well as a basic grid.
Going east? Use Metro.net. The city bus routes can be confusing, but all you need is your departing location and destination. The Metro Line 2 is your best bet to Hollywood. Get on at Gayley and Strathmore Drive and off at Sunset and Highland. Walk a block north and you are now a tourist, but quickly start acting like you live in Los Angeles, because now you do.
If you’re going west, take the Big Blue Bus. Bring your BruinCard, and it’s only a quarter. This is the best way to get to Venice, Santa Monica or any other number of south by southwest locations.
Remember that Los Angeles is a diverse city. Visit Tehrangeles by walking past Wilshire on Westwood. Stop by Chinatown for dim sum. Karoake and barbecue in Koreatown. Go to Glendale if you want to feel Armenian.
Appreciate art. From the Getty to the Museum of Contemporary Art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to the UCLA Hammer Museum and the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, you’d really have to have horse blinders on to not realize that you live amid a world-class collection of museums.
And don’t be afraid to get lost. Sure, you should go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame once. But you should also get pho in Silver Lake, go dancing in Echo Park and check out First Fridays at the Natural History Museum. Be safe by being smart. This is a city after all, and it will unfortunately make you pay for your mistakes.
Finally, don’t plan on going anywhere between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Los Angeles’ daily rush hours are a force to be reckoned with, and from Sunset to Pico Boulevard, the city turns into a parking lot. Other than that, happy exploring.
New? E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu